Mayor Bloomberg and the Economics of Violent Crime

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today took on the widely held belief that economic troubles lead to violent crime, calling it “park-bench wisdown.” The mayor said in a CNN interview: “I don’t know how to break this to you, but people that go out and murder people don’t read The Wall Street Journal.”

Setting aside the fact that the worst financial crisis since the 1930s has been covered by a few other news outlets, is Mayor Bloomberg right about the link between the economy and violent crime?

Economists have been probing the question for decades. And one — who works in the Obama administration — jumped on it a few days ago. Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, wrote on his blog Thursday: “Mayor Bloomberg recently mentioned to me that crime in New York City has declined despite the ongoing recession – which seemed surprising to me, so I looked into it a bit more.”

The answer: There’s a correlation with overall crime, he says (citing University of Chicago economist Steve Levitt’s finding that a five-percentage-point increase in unemployment rates creates a five percent increase in property crime rates). But for violent crime — especially homicide — “the research findings are more ambiguous” with some studies showing a decline during recessions, perhaps because alcohol use tends to decline in recessions, Orszag writes.

The conclusion: “Although property crime increases moderately, as do suicides, the evidence suggests that violent crime shows no strong relationship with the business cycle,” Orszag says.

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